The Scottish Government publishes A Culture Strategy for Scotland
Category: News
Following a public consultation in 2018, the Scottish Government has published A Culture Strategy for Scotland which outlines how important culture is to Scotland’s prosperity and sets the future direction for supporting Scottish culture.
This new strategy sets out a vision that is underpinned by three main ambitions:
- Strengthening culture
- Transforming through culture
- Empowering through culture
The aims of each of these ambitions can be read here.
The strategy places culture as a central consideration across all policy areas and posits that culture can be transformative across society. The strategy, thus, aims to open up the potential for this to happen through new programmes and initiatives such as a creative residencies pilot in education settings (including libraries (p.16)) focussing on areas of multiple deprivations.
This strategy “is an overarching strategy” that “sits in synergy with existing strategies for Scotland’s historic environment, museums and galleries, and libraries” (p.8).
The strategy mentions the value of public libraries as one of the few remaining local spaces offering services free of charge for their communities. It highlights the work being done by SLIC around the development of a new national strategy for Scottish libraries following the success of Ambition & Opportunity 2015-2020. Such strategies are key to guiding the future of public libraries and how they will continue to empower communities in Scotland (p.58).